With the Kondo pre-amps, the question I'd be asking is: can you build your system so that you don't need an active pre-amp and can therefore use a resistor based passive pre-amp instead, for better sound quality at a tiny fraction of the price? For their power amps the question is: can you buy any v...

Sometimes I wonder if PC's are semi-deliberately easy to bugger up or bugger themselves up to encourage people to buy new PC's - along with new operating systems whenever they stop working properly. I've come across so many people who have bought new PC's when all they needed was a software rebuild....

If it were my PC I'd rebuild it. As in do a quick reformat of the hard disks and re-install Windows and then re-install any applications. This would fix it at the expense of losing any documents that haven't been saved onto something else. Spending time trying to fix a misbehaving PC without rebuild...

I like to have bass extension, bass quantity in proportion to the midrange and treble as well as bass quality. With the extension being sufficient to capture bass guitars and kick drums as a minimum, with sufficient extension for film sound effects and 64' organ pipes being nice to have. OB's can be...

The thing with domestic speakers and bass is: you may not realise how flawed the bass in your system is because you may not have heard anything with significantly better bass. That's because speakers that take the easy route to getting good sounding bass are deeply unfashionable. Large to huge light...

Linn LP12 with Valhalla, Basik LVX, Rega R100 cart, Creek CAS4040 amp, Heybook HB1 speakers, Linn Sara stands, 5m pair Naim NACA4, joined 2 months later by Sound Organisation turntable table. The Creek is still in use in my AV system. HB1's foam rotted. Replaced by Linn Saras then Isobariks then Boz...

I have an Avondale homebrew amp that I bought 2nd hand. Les was very helpful a few years back when it blew a couple of fuses when I asked for his advice on fixing it.

Avondale are good amps at reasonable prices. It'll be interesting to see what direction Avondale takes after Les retires.

Another option that has the likely drawback of having a 4 month lead time before you can start listening to it is to buy the cartridge of your dreams that may well have cost a lot more than £500 when new. Preferably this will be one of the lesser known / hyped / sought after cartridges to keep it un...

So, Great Britain and Northern Ireland have won 6 gold medals, 6 silver and 6 bronze.

It's not the end of the world, is it?

Anyone for badminton?